They fear that a more unfettered approach to policing the platform will encourage providers of hate speech, intimidation and misinformation to highlight their misbehavior – a possibility that Musk has done little to dispel. However, even those who have experienced extreme harassment on Twitter say they are unlikely to leave the platform. Despite the negative psychological burden, they value Twitter as a different forum to express their views and interact with others. This may explain why Musk shows little concern for the bottom line of unrestricted freedom of speech, although advertisers – who account for about 90% of Twitter revenue – may not feel the same way. Renee Bracey Sherman, a bi-racial abortion rights activist, has endured a steady stream of predictable criticism on Twitter and, occasionally, an explosion of vicious tweets: messages calling for her death, photos of miscarriages and, more recently, the face she was photographed as a Nazi. “It’s a montage of hatred, anger and violence,” said Bracey Sherman. But while some celebrities are threatening to leave Twitter because of Musk, more typical users like Bracey Sherman say it’s not that simple. They can not leave Twitter and wait for their followers to join them. To quell hatred, Bracey Sherman blocks thousands of people and uses filters to hide the most extreme messages. He also mentions the loudest messages on Twitter, although he says the platform rarely takes action. Twitter did not immediately respond to a comment. The company states on its website that it does not allow targeted harassment or intimidation that could make people afraid to talk. And he says he does not tolerate violent threats. Musk has called himself a “liberal of free speech.” In a tweet to his 85 million followers since Twitter accepted his $ 44 billion offer on Monday, Musk made it clear that he intends to regulate the content with a much lighter touch and that he is not too concerned about the extent of the criticism. likely to feed harmful content. “The extreme reaction of antibodies from those who fear freedom of speech says it all,” Musk wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. Playful, aggressive and often youthful, Musk’s tweets show how he has used social media to create his public image as a brazen billionaire who is not afraid to offend. They may also reveal clues as to how Musk will govern the platform he hopes to own. On Tuesday, Musk criticized one of Twitter’s top lawyers involved in content control decisions. This led some of his followers to make racist and half-hearted remarks to lawyer Vijaya Gadde, who was born in India and immigrated to the United States as a child. The uproar that surrounds Twitter reflects what other social media companies have experienced in the recent past. When Facebook was slow to remove then-President Donald Trump from the platform for his role in the January 6 Capitol uprising, users called for a boycott, but there was no mass exodus. Even when tired users leave a social media platform, there is usually a flow of new users coming right behind them. They are not the most angry users leaving, experts say, but those who simply do not find any use for the platform. While polls show that all types of people are prone to cyberbullying, extensive research has shown that women and people of color are much more likely to be targeted, something Twitter itself acknowledges. This targeting also applies to people with disabilities, people belonging to religious minorities and members of the LGBTQ community. Michael Kleinman, who has studied online harassment for Amnesty International, said that if Twitter allowed more hate and abusive speech, marginalized people who were attacked were less likely to express themselves. “No one feels safe in a public square where as soon as you speak, a hostile mob screaming profanity descends on you. It is no longer a public square. “This is an arena,” Kleinman said. Brianna Wu understands this arena like everyone else. She has been under threat of sexual assault and death on Twitter since 2014, when she created a video game, Revolution 60, featuring women as protagonists. The harassment was part of a larger online campaign targeting female game developers known as GamerGate. Wu has since worked closely with Twitter’s trust and security team to improve the platform. He said it “terrifies me” to hear Musk talk about removing – if not eliminating – these efforts. “We fought very, very hard to improve the platform for women, LGBTQ people and people of color,” said Wu, who is white and identified as bisexual. But Wu does not intend to give up on Twitter, on which she – a former candidate for Congress in Massachusetts – relies on personal and professional relationships. “I have developed lifelong friends on Twitter. “I think it’s really sad that in order to get that human connection I have to face again the harassment that hurts and kills your humanity.” Not everyone is ready to stay. Comic book writer Kelly Sue DeConnick, who has faced harassment as a gender advocate in the entertainment industry, said she would wait to see what changes Musk would make before deciding. “If this is just a place where people scream at each other, shout at each other by name and wish each other sick, I’ll be out,” DeConnick said. Bridget Todd, a spokeswoman for UltraViolet, an organization that advocates discrimination in all its forms, said that while Twitter has been able to reduce harassment on its platform in recent years, it does not use it as much as it once did. Todd said she was deeply concerned that Musk was instructing the company to eliminate the protections it had – which it considered inadequate. But he does not intend to leave the platform. “Our voices are as loud on platforms as Twitter,” he said. “I do not necessarily think this marks the end, because I know our voices can really stand it.” Evan Feeney, campaign director for Color of Change, an online tribal justice organization working to improve the lives of blacks in the United States, called Musk’s push to ease Twitter content standards “a worrying development.” He predicted more coordinated attacks on blacks, especially black women. “It is never good when a billionaire who deliberately combines the freedom to hurt with the freedom of speech controls one of the (largest) social media platforms in the world,” said Feeney. “We have spent years pushing Twitter to implement policies that we believe have made the platform better. “It is worrying that they could be overturned by pushing a switch.” Twitter harassment also spreads to the real world and highlights how many victims are sometimes forced to tolerate. Bracey Sherman says people have placed stickers with racist symbols, including swastikas and monkeys, on her potted plants and on the front door of her home. This is why she attacks those who applaud her unrestricted freedom of speech and simply suggest that she harden and ignore it. “What should I be able to handle?” asked. “The fact that you send me Nazi photos and tell me I have to hurry again and again and again?”
Associated Press author Todd Richmond contributed to this report from Madison, Wisconsin, and Haleluya Hadero from New York. Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska.
